What Is IGV? iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF

IGV is the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF, a passively-managed fund from BlackRock that tracks the S&P North American Expanded Technology Software Index. In one ticker it holds roughly 120 North American software and interactive-media companies: the firms that build enterprise applications, cloud platforms, security software, and the interactive-media businesses that sit alongside them. It launched in July 2001, which makes it one of the longest-running software sector funds available.

The simplest way to understand IGV is as the software layer of technology, isolated from everything else. Where a broad tech fund like VGT owns chips, hardware, and software together, IGV owns only the software, the applied-AI layer that runs on top of the silicon. It uses a capped market-cap weighting, so the largest names sit around 7-9% rather than any single stock dominating, and it carries a ~0.39% expense ratio with a minimal dividend yield.

Approximate weights as of early 2026; refresh quarterly from iShares (BlackRock)'s fund page. Each ticker links to its individual stock guide in Walnut.

IGV is capped market-cap weighted, which keeps its top holdings from running away the way a single mega-cap can in an uncapped fund. Recent leaders include Oracle, Microsoft, Palantir, CrowdStrike, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Adobe, Intuit, IBM, and AppLovin, each sitting roughly in the 3-9% range rather than at double-digit weights. See the top-10 table above for current weights. The top 10 make up roughly 60% of the fund, concentrated but less so than an uncapped sector fund.

The roster blends application software (CRM, ERP, design, tax and finance tools), infrastructure and security software (identity, endpoint, observability), and a slice of interactive media. The other roughly 110 holdings fill out the long tail of mid-cap and smaller software names. What it does not hold is just as important: no semiconductors, no hardware, no telecom. That exclusion is the entire reason to choose IGV over a broad tech fund, it isolates the software side of the AI buildout rather than mixing it with chips.

All three give you technology exposure, but at very different widths. IGV (~0.39%) is software-only, roughly 120 application and infrastructure software names, with no chips or hardware. VGT (~0.09%) is the full information-technology sector, roughly 300-plus names including semiconductors (NVIDIA, Broadcom) and hardware (Apple) alongside software. QQQ is the Nasdaq-100, broader still: tech plus consumer and communications, including non-software giants.

The practical choice is about how concentrated you want the software bet to be. IGV is the purest and most focused software expression, but also the narrowest and the most expensive of the three. VGT is the cheaper, broader way to own all of tech in one fund, and QQQ is a broad large-cap growth fund that happens to be tech-heavy. Many investors pair IGV with a chip fund like SMH or SOXX to assemble software-plus-semis exposure deliberately, rather than letting a single broad fund decide the mix.

IGV's total return comes almost entirely from price appreciation in its underlying software names rather than income, since the fund's dividend yield is minimal. Because it concentrates a single part of the tech sector, IGV tends to swing harder than a broad-market index, and software in particular is sensitive to interest rates: higher rates compress the valuations of high-growth, long-duration software stocks, while easing rates tend to lift them.

The thing to understand before buying is that IGV is a focused bet on the software layer, and increasingly on applied AI software specifically. When enterprise software spending and AI-application demand are strong, that concentration can drive sharp outperformance against a broad index. When growth sentiment turns or rates rise, the same concentration amplifies the drawdown. IGV is best judged over a full cycle and on a total-return basis, against a tech or software benchmark rather than the S&P 500, since matching the broad market is not what it is built to do.

IGV tends to work best as a satellite position, a thematic software sleeve layered around a diversified core like VOO or VTI rather than a core holding on its own. Because it concentrates a single sub-sector of tech into roughly 120 names, with most of the weight in the top 10, it carries meaningfully more volatility than a broad index, and position sizing is where most of the risk decision actually lives. Many thematic investors keep a sector bet like this to a modest slice of the total portfolio.

Walnut isn't an investment adviser and this isn't a recommendation, but two things are worth checking before you size a position. First, the concentration and rate sensitivity: IGV can move a lot, and a heavy weight inherits that swing. Second, overlap: if you already own Microsoft, Adobe, or other large software names directly, or hold a broad tech fund like VGT or QQQ, you may already carry significant exposure to these exact companies, and adding IGV can quietly stack that bet rather than diversify it. In conversation, Walnut's AI can show you how much IGV overlaps with what you already own and where it fits as a software satellite around your core.

IGV trades during US market hours (9:30am to 4:00pm ET) and is available at every major broker, including Robinhood, Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, Public, M1, and Webull. Fractional shares are supported at most modern brokers, which lets you size a precise dollar amount into the software sleeve rather than buying whole shares.

Walnut doesn't replace your broker, it sits on top of it. Connect any major broker and Walnut adds an AI layer that helps you build baskets around IGV, track how your software sleeve is doing against your targets, and rebalance when your allocation drifts.

IGV is a concentrated bet on enterprise and cloud software, the applied-AI layer that sits on top of the chips, with no semiconductor or hardware exposure. It works as a thematic sector satellite around a broad core like VOO or VTI, where VGT is the broader tech alternative (software plus semis plus hardware) and QQQ is broader still.

Whether IGV is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, concentration, and what would have to be true for it to outperform from here in is IGV a buy?

IGV yields ~0.1% as of early 2026, paid by passing through the dividends of its underlying holdings. For the payout schedule, history, and how the distributions are taxed, see IGV dividend: yield and schedule.